They've really been clowning around for so many years, haven't they? That clown pooping a pink rose is funny! At least, for a change, we learn of someone (or something) who 'made' a delicious, nice smelling, beautiful poop. :-)

We had a bunch of these in my mom's "cake decorating box" as a kid (full of all the flotsam that had come with our various kiddie birthday cakes over the years). I loved them! I would bake a cake in a 8.5" x 11" pan (so I only had to ice the top, of course) and cover it in various clown and circus items (we even had a plastic merry-go-round that really moved!). Of course, I was probably 11 years old....and not a professional baker. So, yeah...

My grandparents owned a bakery for most of my childhood. They had TONS of these, but never used them, so when they closed up, I got them.

Since I'm a little mean, or was when I was a youngster, I put them all over the cake of a friend who's scared of clowns for her birthday. She was laughing and crying. It was pretty funny, but man, those heads are creepy!

I took a Wilton decorating class where we were REQUIRED to purchase the clown heads. I refused to buy them so I ended up with headless clowns on my cake. I think that made the clowns look better. They were definitely better than the ones on those "professional" cakes.

Plastic "King Cake" babies grow up to be clowns. At the right age, they, uh, "harvest" the heads. Hence the X'd-out eyes. In the interest of delicacy, I won't tell you the origin of plastic "King Cake" babies, but if you look at the last cake you can probably figure it out.

Thanks for the tribute to the greatest of the plastic flotsam. My fourth birthday cake had four clown heads that held candles. It was the most awesome birthday cake ever. Of course this was in 1978 when clown heads were still cool (and before we all started saying awesome so I guess it was actually a "hip" birthday cake.)

I think I'm gonna get a bag of clown heads and decorate the little doggy gifts that are now appearing in the neighborhood.And, wow! I think I exceeded my daily recommended allowance of puns with that last cake -- brilliant!

the clown poo was great...just yesterday I threw out almost 40 of the little buggers (they were in my junk drawer)..yeah my moms (I have two mommies :) :)!) decided to surprise me for my 40th with 40 of them all over my freaking lawn at 6 am in the morning...along with a few *shudder* clown statues...fond memories the clown heads oh no the freaking clown heads...love this site...note to self when to talking to client on phone do not read this post!

I have somehow avoided getting coulrophobia to this point (using 'getting' in both senses), but *someone* seems determined to add me to the rolls.

#1 I can't get the perspective on this, much less understand why Katie is being wished a slappy birthday. As for the pink dog holding the bunch of brightly-colored raisins on strings...?

#2 Some seriously demented company makes these heads by the metric ton, that much is obvious. Where is the 'Reduced Bake Shop'? For that matter, what is it -- a bakery that was miniaturized?

#3-5 What is the deal on these heads, anyway? The pig-nose profile, the x-eyes... Why x-eyes? Does that somehow cause them to make sense to whomever created these things?

#6 I don't know what to do with this one. Those aren't 'tropical' trees, so the flora and fauna don't go together. My 1960's-sitcom-shaped subconscious keeps insisting it should read, 'Happy Birthday Monkees', which isn't helping at all.

#8 This takes the concept of 'poo' to a whole new, disgusting level of realism. What else could possibly have been intended? What does the wreckerator have against Illinois? And again with the heads...

Good grief, I think I still have a bagful of those clown heads somewhere in the back of a cabinet... I'd forgotten entirely how -oddly- they can be placed! We were taught to make a sitting-up clown, and mostly to make the clowns appear to be climbing the sides of the cake, where they didn't look too weird. Well, no weirder than any other piece of plastic flotsam, I suppose...

I think the 6th cake is actually a "literal" cake...it says Happy Birthday Monkeys, meaning: write Happy Birthday on it and then put monkeys on the cake. Funny thing is that they also followed directions by actually putting plastic monkeys on the cake.

I took a Wilton decorating class one summer in high school...we ran a week too late and had to combine the "clown cake' (which was a HUGE body-shaped pile of frosting topped with the lovely clown head) with a rose Mother's Day cake. I brought it to my youth group...because what else do you do with a clown and roses cake?

About the cake where the "clown-headed pink dog is pooping a giant pink rose," I thought it was a rose-headed pink man holding balloons by his toes while wearing a jockstrap decorated like a clown head. The sad thing is I'm not trying to be funny. When I first saw the clown in the corner of the cake, that's what I thought it was. LOL

About the cake where the "clown-headed pink dog is pooping a giant pink rose," I thought it was a rose-headed pink man holding balloons by his toes while wearing a jockstrap decorated like a clown head. The sad thing is I'm not trying to be funny. When I first saw the clown in the corner of the cake, that's what I thought it was. LOL

I was surprised to find out how ridiculously expensive these clown heads were. We did a circus theme for our Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet this year, and I told my husband we should have creepy clown cupcakes! Only they're like 50c a piece for the cheapest ones I could find. Not worth it to pay 50c before the cake to creep small children out. :)

I bet that uteri cake would taste funny, too.And I don't know what the heck that first cake is. It looks like a clown octopus is coming after the (clown dog?) and the melted-goo clown. Or maybe it's supposed to be the parachute ride at the "amusement" park. Quien sabe?--Blondie's Mom

I definitely saw the clown-head-in-the-private-bits at the top right of the first cake, too. Though my first reaction was less 'clown head penis' and more 'headless woman giving birth to fully-grown dead clown'. Too many freaky baby cakes.

Please pardon my pun, but this post was absolutely HYSTERical!! (So yes, those "uteri" did look funny!) I almost fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard. You guys never fail to give me a laugh, even at the end of a rotten day. Thanks again and keep up the good work!

Haha we use clown heads at Albertsons. However, at the store I work at, we use them on jumbo cupcakes and make clown bodies so that they actually look cute. I had a lady order 30 regular sized cupcake versions of these.... needless to say it was very creepy to have all of those little clown heads staring back at me.

the 5th one looks like they're wearing banana collars. clearly, they are Carmen Miranda clowns- does that mean they been mirandized? You have the right to wear fruit, should you choose to wear fruit it cannot be held against you in a court of law...

Does that cake say happy birthday monkeys?? Lol really? I have a picture of me blowing out a candle on a birthday cake with one of those clown heads on it. I was one at the time and didn't know that those clown heads and all clowns in general (IT one in particular) are to be feared. Lol.

I don't know what's more horrific: the heads themselves all being near-identical, or the fact that they never even stick it on a simple stick-figure! Why do they have to have these tentacle monsters for bodies?! Why?

Um, did anyone else notice that the clown heads are DEAD? I mean, x'ed out eyes usually (in the olden days, when clown heads were first introduced) denoted death. Or maybe it's foreshadowing (or maybe I'd like it to be) the death of dead clown heads on cakes.Tha'd be nice.

@Anonymous Barbara Anne -- mea culpa. I was hoping to avoid another citation from the post length police while remaining rigorously thorough. Ahem.

Meanwhile, I suppose #6 could be the high desert (or 'high' dessert, if you prefer, which might explain the circumstances of its creation), but that doesn't explain the monkeys or the green ground. Unless, of course, the landscape is not of Earth.

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What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

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